Note after sharing the sermon ...

 Note after sharing the sermon: ...

To be transparent, I sketched this blog post to follow a sermon I heard at church. But I didn’t attach the sermon, then I let it sit for a couple months (I evidently left this to be posted in early-November 2024 but didn’t press the “publish” button...), and now I don’t remember the context for this post. I don’t remember what sermon was preached that brought up all these thoughts below. At this point, I’m not going to try to go through old sermons to try to figure out which message this is tied to.

I posted several posts during the fall of 2024 in response to uplifting and clarifying teachings I had received from The Bible Recap, most notably my post in November regarding Hebrews 11-13 and what I believe the God of the Bible revealed to me at that time.

I share the above to say that God still has been faithfully ministering to me (thank You, Lord!). But more new trials and challenges have been coming up that have continued to reveal that I have a very long way to go in order to be considered acceptable in terms of my default responses: complaining, accusing, rejecting, renouncing good commitments, grumbling... etc. I now have a chart that tracks whether I had an angry outburst on any given day, as well as whether or not I have an episode of giving into emotional stress.

Nine years of intensive group and weekend therapy (and ongoing once-a-month individual sessions) with the same counselor that I’ve seen for thirteen years haven’t come close to fixing all. It did help free me from other things that had been holding me down, but I’m only now beginning to come to grips with the reality that there is still so much more personal growth work for me to do -- plus the question I’m now asking myself of whether I will ever attain the other key marks of spiritual maturity that Apostle Paul (the presumed author) talks about in the passage below:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Hebrews 5:12-14, NKJV

[If I were still in a group, I can hear their feedback now: you’re being too hard on yourself; stop beating yourself up. ... I worked hard to learn to receive this kind of feedback, but now after all the new experiences and struggles I’ve faced the last few years since I “graduated” from the support group, I have to wonder whether that feedback was any good at all. I mean, if the goal is spiritual maturity, like the author of the letter to the Hebrews is saying in his rebuke to the believers whom he is addressing.]

Everything I have written up to this point is merely a preamble, which I wrote recently. Everything below is a separate point -- something else I continue to wrestle with -- that I wrote at least a couple months ago. Normally I might think to separate these into two separate posts, but I’m deciding against it, if for no other reason than to say that I don't want to create too many posts on this topic. So here’s a picture of a panoramic shot of downtown Chicago to separate the two halves of this post:

The other point that I still wrestle with to this day is the idea of “believe that you already have it, claim it, and then you will receive it.” I’m not going to say I disagree with it, because, after all, it is the Word of God (and more specifically, Jesus speaking it, for those who have hang-ups about other parts of the New Testament besides the four Gospels):

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. Mark 11:23-24, NKJV

But I still struggle with it, largely because I have believed for so many things over the years that never came to pass, and as I continue to examine my own faults and stumbling blocks at this stage in my life (like what I wrote in the first half of this post!), I continue to find more things that I was once hopeful for, things that I truly believed God for, even in which I overlooked the very clear signs (including discouraging words or cold shoulders) indicating that those things I was believing for were not going to come to pass, no matter how hard I believed.

There’s also the fact that, since either high school or college, I’ve been aware of what is commonly called the “Prosperity Gospel.” Megachurch pastors such as Joel Osteen and Joseph Prince commonly preach “believe that you have already received it, speak as if you have already received it, and then it will actually materialize.” To the outside eyes, these two are the preeminent examples of preachers of the Gospel of prosperity. When I was dating my ex, she loved the messages preached by these two particular pastors (among a few others) and sent me their devotionals almost daily. The whole time that we were dating, I had concerns as to whether she was believing in a “Prosperity Gospel,” and I told a few friends as such. But because I am the type of person that wants to give a person a chance and not judge immediately, I never slid into the definite camp of “she definitely believes in the Prosperity Gospel” while we were together. It wasn’t until I was getting to know my wife when I heard her opinion on these pastors and I felt I received confirmation of what I had suspected: my ex in fact did believe in the “Prosperity Gospel.”

I’m approaching (or have already approached) middle age. I’m finding that my perspective on this era of life has been changing from opinions that I had cultivated when I was younger. As a child and a younger adult, I was firmly in the camp of “a year older, a year better,” and that there was no reason for me to think that I should feel “over the hill” or “past my prime” once I reached middle age. I don’t feel that now, but I am very aware that I’ve passed through years that I’m not going to get back. I vacillate regarding whether “my best days are behind me.” They shouldn’t be. After all, “For with God nothing will be impossible.” (Luke 1:37, NKJV) My 40s and 50s can be better than my 20s and 30s were, even if my biodegradable body has and will continue to lose aspects of vitality and “spring” from its being. But, after having self-examined (and continuing to self-examine) my own patterns as well as resultant consequences from the such, I’m no longer as hopeful or as convinced that I’ll be able to change myself to meet some of the expectations that I had once hoped for in myself or in life.

For many years, I used to hope and expect that, despite a rough first part of life, I could still get myself to a place where I would have the American Dream: the wife, the kids, the house (yes, an actual house! with a yard!), the money (the job didn’t matter because back in the day, as long as you were always on time and worked hard, everything else would work out). But getting to a place of being able to live independently, to be financially independent, and to successfully have a healthy relationship with a woman partner, all these things took far longer than I ever would have thought. Now, I’m grateful that I have these things at all – I know quite a few others who still struggle to get all of what I’ve been blessed to be able to receive at this point – but I’ve had to really readjust many of these expectations. My wife and I are not sure if we want to have kids (we have a plethora of reasons for that), and until we get to a place where we both feel comfortable with it, we are doing everything we can to not put ourselves in that position. We also have decided that we are unlikely to pursue getting a house – ever – also for a multitude of reasons. Now, I mention these things not to place the blame on my wife or even to insinuate that she convinced me to change my expectations. In fact, we both came to an accord on these things on our own and it just so happened that we managed to agree quickly. From my end, it’s an acknowledgement based on what I know about my strengths and many weaknesses – my track record with children isn’t good, and I’ve never lived in a house (having done so for one year in Houston when I was a year old doesn’t count, sorry) so I find the thought of having to track and keep up with all the maintenance quite daunting.

All of the above to say, between realizing that much more of my life is gone than it used to be, and having experienced so many dead dreams (big and little alike), believing for things that haven’t happened and seem far-fetched is indeed a stretch for me, and one in which I would not only need a lot of convincing but in a non-lecture format. Yes, nothing is impossible with God, and yes we can have anything that we believe Him for that aligns with His will, but we also need to remember that God is sovereign. First, He’s not going to give us anything that is outside His will, and second, if He were to, that’s a bad sign. Among other things, it’s a sign that we haven’t truly surrendered our lives and our wills to God to use as He pleases. We’re supposed to live for Him and not for ourselves (something that I still majorly fail at on a heart level). At the same time, I do also hear that we shouldn’t limit God. They are right; we shouldn’t. But we also need to align ourselves with His will. After all, it’s about the Gospel and about the Great Commission (telling other people about the life-saving power of God’s mercy and truth through His Son Jesus Christ’s blood sacrifice on the cross for our sins). Everything else – work, marriage, family, leisure – is window dressing.

I’ve heard a few different heaven and hell testimonies over recent years. While I recognize that we need to take such things with a grain of salt and to always cross-check them against the Word, I want to iterate a statistic that should inspire Godly fear in all who read this page: based on the testimonies that I have heard, the rough percentage for people who are allowed entry into heaven upon dying is 2.5% (in other words, 25 out of 1,000 people who passed away over a 15-minute interval in earth time). That means, at any given time, 97.5% of people (or 975 out of 1,000 people) who die will be banished to hell. My church does preach as if everyone who passes through its doors is already part of the 2.5%, which might explain quite a few of the things I hear (both which I have named at some point in this sermon, as well as some other things I may have left unnamed). However, if I am to take that startling 2.5% (heaven entrants) vs 97.5% (castoffs) difference seriously, I think we need to look at a few other passages that I believe will shed light on what could lead to this stark statistic:

that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9, NKJV

but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Jude 1:23, NKJV

If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 1 Corinthians 3:15, NKJV

31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.

41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:31-33,41-46, NKJV

I do think the above passage from Matthew 25 is critical – evidence of faith is important – still, no one gets into heaven by their good works and certainly not by their self-righteousness:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9, NKJV

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17, NKJV

that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9, NKJV